Best time to visit Cornwall

United Kingdom · Europe

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Cornwall

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in Apr–Sep — these months score within a whisker of each other; 15C max, 11 rainy days. Oct is the next best.

Plan this trip

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too.

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Flights

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Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

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Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.

Things to do in Cornwall

Eden Project Visitor attraction in Cornwall in the United Kingdom
Land's End The most westerly point of the English mainland…
Tintagel One of the Trust's most delightful medieval buildings, enhanced by a cottage garden.
Bodmin Moor A bleak moor to the east of Bodmin made famous by Daphne du Maurier's book Jamaica Inn
Wolf Rock Lighthouse Lighthouse in Cornwall, England
Truro Cathedral Cathedral located in the city of Truro, Cornwall, England, UK
The Flambards Experience Amusement park in Cornwall, England

Tours and tickets in Cornwall

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Cornwall), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	10°	14d	81%	4.2h	avoid	10C max, 14 rainy days
Feb	10°	13d	81%	5.6h	avoid	10C max, 13 rainy days
Mar	11°	14d	81%	7.4h	ok	11C max, 14 rainy days
Apr	13°	10d	79%	10.0h	sweet spot	13C max, 10 rainy days
May	15°	11d	82%	11.6h	sweet spot	15C max, 11 rainy days
Jun	17°	12d	83%	11.3h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Jul	19°	11d	83%	11.7h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Aug	19°	11d	83%	10.7h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Sep	17°	12d	83%	8.6h	sweet spot	17C max, 12 rainy days
Oct	15°	14d	83%	6.5h	ok	15C max, 14 rainy days
Nov	12°	16d	82%	4.6h	avoid	12C max, 16 rainy days
Dec	11°	16d	82%	3.7h	avoid	11C max, 16 rainy days

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at St Ives, 43 km from the airport (NQY): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest from June to August; quietest in February and December.

Then and now

Cornwall's February days now average 10.2°C, 1.6°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 2 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	9.2°	8.5°	10.0°	11.6°	14.5°	16.8°	19.4°	19.1°	17.3°	14.4°	11.4°	10.1°
2017–26	9.6°	10.2°	10.8°	12.5°	14.8°	17.2°	19.0°	18.9°	17.5°	14.9°	12.3°	10.8°
Change	+0.4°	+1.6°	+0.7°	+0.9°	+0.4°	+0.4°	-0.4°	-0.2°	+0.1°	+0.5°	+0.8°	+0.7°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

How far Cornwall is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type G plugs at 230 V. Drives on the left. The currency is the Pound sterling. Everything for United Kingdom: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Contactless cards and phones work almost everywhere, and some places no longer take cash. Small shops and pubs may set a card minimum of about £5.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — 10 to 15% in restaurants for good service, unless a service charge is already on the bill. Rounding up a taxi fare is usual but not expected.

Getting around Cornwall

Every bus in Cornwall takes contactless Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay or Android Pay: tap the driver's machine as you board and the reader by the exit as you get off, with the same card, and a day's fares cap at the £10 all-Cornwall day ticket (£40 over seven days). A single costs no more than £3 until March 2027. The St Ives Bay Line train runs from St Erth, on the main line, to St Ives; after 09:00 on weekdays and all weekend, its day ranger costs £4.20, and Ride Cornwall (£21) covers a day on most buses and off-peak trains. From Newquay's airport, bus 56 runs to Newquay and Padstow.

Apps — Rides: Bolt, FreeNow, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: WhatsApp.

Thanks to Transport for Cornwall, all bus tickets are interchangeable across the different companies (except certain town buses in St Ives and Fowey). More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Cornwall, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — 999 or 112 (any emergency).
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (48)

Cornwall in pictures

Godrevy Lighthouse July 2026 02 — i

ArildV, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

N Cornwall coast and GCHQ Bude — i

Herbythyme, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

View from Tintagel Castle Cornwall England — i

Terragio67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Meachard Island. Coast of Cornwall near Boscastle. England — i

Ввласенко, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cape Cornwall July 2026 02 — i

ArildV, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Cornwall is like

Cornwall (Cornish: Kernow) is a county in the southwest of England. Lying west of Devon from which it is separated by the River Tamar, Cornwall is one of the more isolated and distinctive parts of the United Kingdom but is also one of its most popular with holidaymakers. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Cornwall boasts many attractions for the traveller, many lying outside of cities and towns amidst the Cornish landscape: Within the 208 m² of the Bodmin Moor, is King Arthur's Hall, a megalithic monument and Brown Willy… More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: The South West Coast Path runs along the coastline of Britain’s south-west peninsula. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: 'Cornwall Airport Newquay ('NQY IATA) lies north-east of Newquay, with year-round flights from destinations throughout the UK and Europe, including some London airports. More on Wikivoyage
Staying safe: Visitors to Cornwall should at all times be aware of the unpredictable and dangerous nature of some of the tides and currents around the Cornish coast and seek advice from local lifeguards before swimming or surfing. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Cornwall, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Cornwall

Also in United Kingdom

Nearby

Kind of place

Cornwall is in United Kingdom, Europe. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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